KOLBS LEARNING CYCLE

KOLBS LEARNING CYCLE

Kolb’s cycle of learning suggests that there are four stages which follow on from each other and repeat in a cycle: Concrete Experience is followed by Reflection on that experience on a personal basis. This may then be followed by the derivation of general rules describing the experience, or the application of known theories to it (Abstract Conceptualisation), and hence to the construction of ways of modifying the next occurrence of the experience (Active Experimentation), leading in turn to the next Concrete Experience. All this may happen in a flash, or over days, weeks or months, depending on the topic, and there may be a "wheels within wheels" process at the same time.

I believe that the principles of Kolb’s Cycle of learning are an important thing to think about as a professional. In order to achieve and move forward it is vital that we reflect on our actions, learn from our mistakes, solve any problems and try again. In my opinion professional reflectivity is essential in becoming the best that you can be in your given profession.

Working as a teaching assistant in a secondary school, I come across many problems, major and minor on a day to day basis in regards to behavioural issues, learning difficulties and so on. This gives me the opportunity to gain considerable concrete experience. The school, Sir Thomas Boughey High School, has strict sanctions for ill behaved pupils, and a good reputation for discipline to enable children to achieve the best success for themselves as individuals. I, as a member of staff, am expected to uphold this reputation.

An example of concrete experience:
One day I was leading a dance class for a group of approximately thirty year 8, lower band children. Although I was being supervised by a qualified P.E teacher, I was pretty much left to my own devices and due to staff shortage I was, if you like, “thrown in at the deep end”. I found that being such a large group, with a number of disruptive children in the class, the noise levels were raising to a difficult level and most of the children were not paying attention to the instructions which I was giving to them. Excited at the prospect of doing street dance they were messing around and making silly and disruptive actions. They had already learnt the main section of the dance with another teacher and the next section was to be 32 counts choreographed themselves, in twos. I split them into groups of four for this session so that they had more people to share ideas with and gain ideas from and asked them to perform their work to the rest of the class at the end.

An example of reflection/observation:
Thinking about the lesson afterwards, I decided that the children did not gain all that they could have or were given the opportunity to gain from the session. Those that did want to learn new skills and put their ideas into practice were prevented from doing this by other disruptive members of their groups. Despite having explained instructions at the beginning of the lesson, when walking around the room to give guidance to the groups, many were not even sure what they were supposed to be doing because they hadn’t listened attentively to instructions provided. The work which was produced was very poor quality with the exception of one group which did work exceptionally well together, however some groups produced no work at all and had clearly spent their time arguing about ideas or messing about. I think part of the disruptive nature in the room was the fact that the pupils were used to being “spoon fed” and hadn’t ever really previously had the chance to come up with their own creative ideas. They seemed unable to be able to organise themselves due to always being organised by a teacher or leader.

An example of abstract conceptualisation:
I decided that I needed to think of a system to get the pupils to be quiet and attentive when I was giving instructions and help. A way to get them to be still would be to get them to sit down while I, as the session leader was talking. Whilst thinking about the problems of the previous lesson, I also came up with the idea of using one single word which would mean for them to sit down and be quiet as it was time to listen to instructions. Using one single word would grab their attention more than dictating a long sentence or phrase.
An example of active experiment:
A couple of days later, I took the same group again, this time splitting them into groups of two to produce their final 32 counts of choreography. At the start of the lesson I explained my new system to them, asking them to sit down on the floor in silence when I shout “Stop”, to listen for instructions, telling them that anyone who didn’t do this quietly and sensibly would do 10 press-ups in front of the rest of the class. I tried this at various points in the lesson to give guidance to the pupils and to get them back on task if I felt they were loosing concentration and although there were a few children still not behaving appropriately, having watched them perform press-ups in front of the group, others did not allow themselves to be drawn into the bad behaviour and get distracted from what they were supposed to be doing. I also think that working in groups of two rather than four helped as they were more willing to share and try each others ideas, rather than all competing to get their ideas heard. Upon reflection of this active experiment, the new system was successful and created a much more effective learning environment and I will be using this again in future physical activity sessions.